What Will Never Be
by Willow-Bee the Cat
Summary: Two former teammates meet over tea.


Disclaimer: I neither own nor make a profit from Harry Potter or Naruto

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Everything for both series.

Summary: Two former teammates meet over a cup of tea.

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What Will Never Be

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He lounged in a tree outside the small cottage, seemingly reading a bright orange book. In actuality, the shinobi was closely observing the residents of the cottage as they bustled about the kitchen, having breakfast at a disgracefully late hour-it was nearly eight.

A tall red haired man-a fighter, perhaps a soldier or a samurai, never a shinobi-ate everything in sight as his wife, a soft, obviously pregnant dark haired woman tried to convince a toddler to eat. A moment later the man kissed his wife and the toddler goodbye then disappeared with a soft pop. Perhaps the red haired man was a shinobi after all. Not a very good one, but then again, appearances could be deceiving.

The shinobi spent the morning watching the red haired man's wife as she completed various household tasks while the toddler played with toys at her feet. She cleaned the kitchen then spent the rest of the morning absently doodling what would doubtless look like meaningless designs to a civilian. To a trained shinobi it was apparent that she was drawing seals. To somebody who had studied fuinjutsu in as great a depth as he had, it was clear the woman was trying to find the right way to order the rune array to create an entirely new seal. She'd always been far better than him with fuinjutsu. As lunch approached, the fuinjutsu master disappeared in favor of the housewife as she put together lunch for herself and the toddler.

An hour or so after lunch, the housewife put the toddler down for a nap on the couch in the sitting room. She then bustled about the kitchen for several minutes before grabbing a basket and a pair of shears. She spent nearly half an hour searching the garden for flowers. Once back in the cottage, she took out a vase, filled it with water and began to put the flowers in. There was seemingly no design to her bouquet and any practitioner of ikebana would have been horrified, however Kakashi had to admit it was an interesting arrangement. Every once in a while she would hold a flower up to the window and examine it, generally cutting the stem a bit shorter before putting it in the vase. Not once did she look toward the shinobi's position. Nevertheless, he understood the message.

The woman pulled out a tin of tea leaves and began to make tea the proper way, not the strange way people in this country favored. The shinobi put his book away and slipped from the tree. He let himself into the cottage careful not to wake the toddler sleeping only a room away. The housewife said nothing about his sudden appearance in her kitchen, instead carefully finishing pouring out two cups of tea, one she set out before him, the other she kept for herself.

The shinobi soaked in her appearance. She had changed far more than he. Instead of a sensible bob, her brown ringlets had been permitted to fall to her hips, restrained only by a ribbon. Instead of a utilitarian medic's apron over a loose shirt and spandex shorts, all designed for the maximum range of motion and protection she wore a rustic, full ankle length dress and apron under a vest laced up in the front. There were new, unexpected scars. One which fell diagonally across her chest, mostly covered by the dress's neckline. Another, across the neck, just under the chin-she'd survived having her throat slit. Finally, there were two ligature scars, one about each wrist. The scars and identifying marks he had known so well were gone-likely hidden by a seal or genjutsu.

"To what do I owe the honor, Kakashi-kun?" she said, choosing to speak in the dialect of Japanese unique to the elemental countries.

"Can't a man visit his old teammate?"

"We haven't been teammates in two decades." Her eyes narrowed. "And you weren't much of a teammate either."

He bowed his head in acknowledgement of the truth in her words. "Rin-ch-"

"Rin is dead," she snapped, eyes blazing. The woman shook her head and sipped a cup of tea. "I'm not Rin. I haven't been Rin in a long time."

"Hermione-chan, then." Despite her apparent anger, he chose to use the honorific as she had used kun without prompting. "I'd heard you were dead."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Dead? Whoever told you that was lying."

"Pakkun felt you die."

The woman stilled at that. "Why would he think that? It makes no sense."

"He felt you die sixteen years ago."

With that her eyes narrowed and she seemed to drift off. He well recognized that look, though he'd not seen it since she'd left Konoha eighteen years prior. She was thinking. Though she had allowed Kakashi to sign the Dog Summoning Contract when she'd retired as a kunoichi, shortly after Obito's death, she had still been the main summoner. When Pakkun had felt her death, Kakashi had assumed that she was dead, that there was no other explanation. And part of him could not help but regret that he'd not at least chosen to investigate his former teammate's supposed death.

"When? What month?"

"Late April, early May."

The was a quick nod. "That explains it." When she said nothing else, Kakashi tilted his head in question. She gave him a small, sad smile. "I had a bit of a run in with a demon snake called a Basilisk. I didn't die, but I spent a month literally petrified, neither alive nor dead. If you thought I was dead, why are you here now?"

"I did die," he said bluntly. Subjecting her to his usual quirks and mask had never been an option. Not to Kakashi. He pulled down his mask-it was only fun messing with people who didn't know what his face really looked like-and took a drink of the tea. "Dad and I had a nice long talk. Imagine my surprise when I found out you weren't dead."

"How are you alive?"

He shrugged. "Sensei's son talked one of Jiraiya-sama's former students into bringing back to life all the people he'd killed when he invaded Konoha."

She blinked. "I'd ask, but I don't think I want to know. What's happened with you since I left the village?"

"The usual… I joined ANBU for a couple years. I got a Genin team. Sensei's son is considered S-rank in enemy bingo books. Pinky-my kunoichi-is a little mini-Tsunade. She'd not as good as you were," he shrugged as if to say nobody could ever be as good as she was. "My third student went nukenin. Oh, and I was Hokage for a couple months."

"Only a couple months?"

"Too much paperwork. I gave the position to sensei's son."

A bright laugh was the only response to that. He supposed there was a good reason Team Minato had relied on her to do all their paperwork.

"Mama?" came a sleepy voice.

At her motion, Kakashi used a simple genjutsu to hide himself as she turned on the radio. The small toddler wandered into the room dragging a doll behind her. The toddler looked remarkable like her mother, though her wild ringlets were auburn, not brown. A large, elderly ginger table cat followed on the girl's heals. The cat broke away from the girl to rub itself against Kakashi's legs, ignoring the genjutsu as if it wasn't there at all. A moment later the cat laid down on Kakashi's feet and began to clean it's paws.

Speaking in the barbaric language of the country-English, he'd learned it just for her-she said, "Rosie, did the radio wake you?"

Rosie nodded, sleepily draping herself over her mother as she was picked up. Were other six month pregnant women capable of carrying a child that large? She buried her face in her mother's neck. "Read story."

"Alright baby. What story do you want?"

"Gutsy Ninja!"

"Alright. Were we on chapter five or chapter six?" she teased.

"Nine, mama," said Rosie, as if speaking to an idiot. Obviously she'd inherited that tone from her mother.

"One chapter and then you go back to sleep, alright?"

Rosie nodded into her mother's neck. Then the little girl turned her head to lean it against her mother's shoulder. Her large brown eyes stared directly at Kakashi. Only the knowledge that he was hidden by a genjutsu kept him from reacting. There was no way the girl could know he was there.

Rosie was settled on the couch and covered with a blanket. Rin-no, not Rin, never again Rin-knelt beside her daughter and read Jiraiya's first book to the girl until she drifted off to sleep, well before the end of the ninth chapter. As she read, the cat got off Kakashi's feet and cuddled up next to Rosie, much to the girl's delight.

Once her daughter was asleep, she returned to the kitchen and motioned for Kakashi to drop the genjutsu. He absently drank some more of the tea, waiting for her to break the silence.

Finally, pitching his voice so it would not carry to Rosie, Kakashi asked, "So what about you?"

"Me?" There was a moment of confusion, then understanding. "Nothing so grand as Hokage. Went to school, helped stop a genocidal maniac from taking over the country, worked as an Obliviator-uh, that's like T and I-for a couple years, got married, retired to raise my kids. Are you married yet?"

Kakashi shook his head, an unreadable look on his face. "You're husband?"

"Ron? What do you want to know about him?" When Kakashi said nothing, she sighed. "He, Harry, and I were a team during the civil war. He's a good man. Not the smartest or the fastest or the most powerful, but he-" There was an expression he'd never actually seen on her face before. "-he makes me happy. He's a good provider."

They spent several silent moments recovering from the question that in retrospect Kakashi wished he had not asked.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi announced. "I should not have said what I did."

"We both said a lot of things we shouldn't have that day," she admitted. "And don't apologize for saying what we both know you meant." She paused, looking him in the eye. "Why are you here, really?"

"Do you ever think about what could have been?"

"That road does not lead to a place either of us want to go."

He took a deep drink of the tea, emptying the cup. "I should be going. I didn't get permission to leave the village."

She shook her head with a sigh. Leaving the village without permission was serious. If he was gone for more than three days he could be declared a nukenin.

"Well Kakashi-kun, it was…" She seemed incapable of finding a word to describe his visit that she actually wanted to vocalize. "Well, it was."

Kakashi gave a sharp nod. They both stood and she walked him to the kitchen door. He found himself standing in the doorway watching this broken shadow of the girl he'd once known. The Third Great Shinobi War had effected some worse than others, and despite what the other Jonin might think, this woman was far, far more broken than he was. And it showed, at least to those who knew how to look.

Before she had a chance to react, Kakashi wrapped his arms around her-one around her waist, the other carefully holding her head-and bent down. He gave her a rough, fierce kiss, knowing that if he did not do so, he would forever have regretted it. She was limp, leaning against him as if he were the only thing holding her up.

Gently he pulled himself away from her, not removing his arms until he was sure her legs were steady beneath her. Kakashi pushed a strand of hair that had come free of the ribbon behind her ear. She seemed lost, unsure of how to react to what he'd done.

One hand reached for a scroll he'd painstakingly inscribed one of the most complicated seal's he'd ever used. It was the seal Minato-sensei had derived his Hiraishin from, all those years ago. With the other hand he caressed her face. Gently, he kissed her forehead and pulled his mask back up to cover his face.

"Goodbye, Rin-chan."

With that, Kakashi activated the transportation scroll

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Author's Notes: Normally I put my notes up top, but I thought it better to put them at the bottom this time. This is the first in a trio of short stories, which I call the What Is and What Will Never Be series. I may eventually add more to the series, but I think I'll leave it with only the three because quite honestly, it depresses me a little.

How Rin left Konoha and became Hermione Granger is left unexplained for good reason. It's just too much to explain in this little series. I wanted to explore the question of Rin's fate, and this is what I came up with.

I know Kakashi seemed a little out of character. That is because he was dealing with a former teammate, somebody who knew him when he was a snotty little brat and certainly would not appreciate his imitation of their dead teammate. There is also a reason Kakashi never refers to Rin as Hermione in his mind, but what that reason is I leave unsaid.

I also know I didn't explain how the Harry Potter universe and the Naruto universe coexist. This was because I thought there was no reason to. At least not in this little series.


End file.
